NI Conservatives’ enterprise spokesman, Johnny Andrews, has called upon DETI minister, Arlene Foster, to personally clarify if linking funding for the Giant’s Causeway Visitors Centre to the inclusion of the creationist viewpoint in an exhibition there was ever considered.
An email from a department official suggested that the National Trust were ‘unwilling’ to countenance such an arrangement.
“This email raises all sorts of questions, considering the history of murky involvement by the DUP in the proposals for a visitors centre at the Causeway”, Johnny noted. “Minister Foster needs to spell out categorically whether her department wanted to link the release of public money for this project to demands around the exhibition it was to house. If there is another explanation for the official raising this possibility, we need to hear it.”
“It would be appalling if government departments or individual ministers attempted to censor or guide the content at tourist attractions or cultural attractions. Yet there is a precedent, because Nelson McCausland wrote letters aimed at influencing the Ulster Museum and the Belfast Festival at Queen’s, to reflect his preoccupations.”
“We know that the DUP has close links to the Caleb Foundation, which lobbied hard to have the creationist viewpoint reflected at the visitors centre. If pressure was brought to bear on the National Trust from Arlene Foster’s department it was completely unacceptable and we need clarity immediately, so that this suspicion of sinister dealings can be substantiated or put to rest.”